All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[numberthirty]

Man...

From the looks of an interview tonight, it seems like at least one vehicle might have been hit by a stray bullet when Brooks was killed.

In addition to that one of those cops gunned someone down in the street, it looks like it's just dumb luck that a bystander on the scene wasn't hit or killed.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Justice Department Seeks Restraining Order Against John Bolton Over New Book

The DOJ seeks to block publication of the former national security adviser’s book, “The Room Where It Happened,” which it claims contains classified information. Let's call a spade a spade: Trump doesn't give a shit about classified information possibly being released, he doesn't want the book released because it makes him look bad.

**********

Bolton Claims Trump Encouraged Xi To Build ‘Concentration Camps’ For Uighurs

In an excerpt of his new book, the former national security advisor details the president’s complicated relationship with the Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Considering Trump has been warehousing Latinos in cages at the border for months, is it any surprise he's encouraging other despots to follow his lead?

**********

Trump Says Police Killing Of Rayshard Brooks ‘Terrible,’ But ‘You Can’t Resist’ Officers

“I hope he gets a fair shake because police have not been treated fairly in our country,” the president said of the former officer charged with murder. Is it any wonder cops feel like they have free rein to commit murder when the president encourages such behavior with comments like that?

**********

White House Won’t Say If Medical Professionals OK’d Trump Rally

The campaign is “taking every single safety precaution that we can,” press secretary Kayleigh McEnany insisted. Uh-huh! Right. Gotcha. Whatever you say, Baghdad Barbie.

**********

Bruce Springsteen Wants Trump To ‘Put On A F**king Mask’

“With 100,000-plus Americans dying over the last few months and the empty shamed response from our leaders, I’ve been simply pissed off,” Springsteen said.

[Tendrin]

So uh, this story about eBay executives getting rung up on federal charges for interatate threats is absolutely some 2020-level shit

https://twitter.com/EmilyGorcenski/s...323008/photo/1

Links to the whole story int he thread.

[Username taken]

I already posted this on the YouTube-thread. But I guess I could share it here as well. It's a video from 2018 that addresses some of the long standing issues of police violence beyond the institutional racism.

I love listening to Beau.

He keeps it real and addresses issues with real facts.

[Tendrin]

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Does the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, forbidding employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, also spell the end to affirmative action?
That may sound like a crazy question. But Justice Neil Gorsuch’s opinion, emphasizing the need to follow the “original public meaning” of legal texts, gives a real boost to opponents of affirmative action. In fact, a passage in that opinion seems as if it was explicitly meant to provide that boost.
Here’s the background. The key provision of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it
unlawful . . . for an employer to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
That provision was the governing text in Bostock. It is also the foundation for legal challenges to racial preferences in employment, even if they take the form of voluntary affirmative-action programs. According to those who challenge racial preferences, discrimination is discrimination — period.

Remember when some of us warned against trusting Gorsuch in any way?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/gorsuch-p...150031877.html

[Tendrin]

Watching Matt Gaetz get owned is beautiful.

https://twitter.com/mayaharris_/stat...95754095296514

[Gray Lensman]

Remember when some of us warned against trusting Gorsuch in any way?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/gorsuch-p...150031877.html

There are 3 people on the court who worry me more than Gorsuch, and he is in a tie with a 4th.....actually, Roberts, with his ability to assign opinions away from the most senior judge involved worries me more. It was only a few years ago the he allowed RBG to author a majority opinion. Gorsuch is the least worrisome conservative on the court in my eyes - the rightward lurch is more a function of a center-right judge being replaced by a far right one in Judge Kegger. Gorsuch doesn't seem to be any further to the right than the guy he replaced - even if he shouldn't have been position to do so.

[InformationGeek]

Cruz couldn't handle Hellboy, so the runt is trying to punch at a softer target.

[Tami]

Black Teenage Boy Found Hanged Outside Houston Elementary School: Report

Houston Police said a black teenage boy was found hanged outside an elementary school, reported the Houston Chronicle.

The boy was found in a remote corner on Ehrhardt Elementary School property in Spring, and Harris County sheriff’s deputies are investigating as a suicide.

Investigators said they have reviewed surveillance video, spoke to neighbors and examined other evidence that they said indicated the teen had killed himself.

The apparent suicide is the second reported this week in Harris County, where Houston police said a Latino man was found hanged early Monday.

Houston police said family members described that man as suicidal, and they said they found no evidence of foul play.

It doesn't make sense.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Black Teenage Boy Found Hanged Outside Houston Elementary School: Report







It doesn't make sense.

You're telling me. Of all the ways people can commit suicide: drug overdose, wrist slitting, drowning, sucking on a tailpipe with the engine running, a bullet to the brain, dashing in front of a speeding truck or train, jumping off a highrise, etc, for that kid to have been found hanged was fishier than the Baltimore Aquarium, given the current climate of deteriorating race relations.

[The Cool Thatguy]

You're telling me. Of all the ways people can commit suicide: drug overdose, wrist slitting, drowning, sucking on a tailpipe with the engine running, a bullet to the brain, dashing in front of a speeding truck or train, jumping off a highrise, etc, for that kid to have been found hanged was fishier than the Baltimore Aquarium, given the current climate of deteriorating race relations.

In the past, some people have lit themselves on fire as form of protest. I can see how hanging one's self could be form of protest of racial injustice.

So IMO, there's a possibility, however very small.

That said, we need the FBI on this because these all seem to be ruled 'suicide' far too quickly. And the police have not give us reason to trust them.

[godisawesome]

So, the Supreme Court just ruled in favor of DACA and against Trump. The vote was the kind you’d expect to deliver that kind of decision - 5-4, with Roberts joining the liberal judges on this one.

I think this decision is probably informed as much, if not more, by Roberts pragmatic hold on power - he’s effectively just as powerful as McConnel and Trump, but depends on maintaining the political cache of being “the referee” that no one wants to start packing the court against by increasing the number of judges. Even the wording of the ruling here plays with that - it stops the administration’s attempt to end DACA, but by arguing a matter of process, nor principal, so that theoretically a prescient could weasel his way towards removing it later... but in Roberts’s likely opinion, hopefully after the election.

[The Cool Thatguy]

So, the Supreme Court just ruled in favor of DACA and against Trump. The vote was the kind you’d expect to deliver that kind of decision - 5-4, with Roberts joining the liberal judges on this one.

I think this decision is probably informed as much, if not more, by Roberts pragmatic hold on power - he’s effectively just as powerful as McConnel and Trump, but depends on maintaining the political cache of being “the referee” that no one wants to start packing the court against by increasing the number of judges. Even the wording of the ruling here plays with that - it stops the administration’s attempt to end DACA, but by arguing a matter of process, nor principal, so that theoretically a prescient could weasel his way towards removing it later... but in Roberts’s likely opinion, hopefully after the election.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but process would be the only thing that could save DACA, isn't it?

Obama used his executive power to establish it. I see no reason then why the next president couldn't just undo it with enough effort/cause

[WestPhillyPunisher]

So, the Supreme Court just ruled in favor of DACA and against Trump. The vote was the kind you’d expect to deliver that kind of decision - 5-4, with Roberts joining the liberal judges on this one.

I think this decision is probably informed as much, if not more, by Roberts pragmatic hold on power - he’s effectively just as powerful as McConnel and Trump, but depends on maintaining the political cache of being “the referee” that no one wants to start packing the court against by increasing the number of judges. Even the wording of the ruling here plays with that - it stops the administration’s attempt to end DACA, but by arguing a matter of process, nor principal, so that theoretically a prescient could weasel his way towards removing it later... but in Roberts’s likely opinion, hopefully after the election.

I must admit I found that ruling to have been a surprise, given the right leaning bent of SCOTUS. Also on the docket for the Supremes: the matter of Trump being made to reveal his tax returns. I suspect he'll win that battle.

[The Cool Thatguy]

I must admit I found that ruling to have been a surprise, given the right leaning bent of SCOTUS. Also on the docket for the Supremes: the matter of Trump being made to reveal his tax returns. I suspect he'll win that battle.

Agreed. I can't help but feel that DACA and the LGBT ruling were gives to the Left, to justify the 'No taxes' ruling that we'll see